[Pibe-division] Typing out Special Spanish Characters on a Laptop

[Dr. Denise M. Robinson]

Typing out Special Spanish Characters on a Laptop 
Most people know that you can insert special symbols into documents as you are typing. However, JAWS talking software does not talk the symbols as you search for them so it requires a sighted person's help. One big advantage of Office 2010 is you have 20 options to hold your most recently used symbols and JAWS does talk those, so when the student is in class, they can easily access them. However, it is only 20. Between math and Spanish class you quickly run out of options.

Another option is to memorize the special combination of letters and numbers to automatically insert any symbol. For my Spanish student, she was having difficulty with doing all the letters and numbers in the correct order to insert the correct symbol. I asked a Microsoft friend about other options and he sent me to this page, which has made all the difference in the world (Spanish symbols)

She uses a laptop so now needed to learn how to use the numpad on the laptop, which is actually the letters ON the keyboard. Using the FN or function key with scroll she now turns on her numpad and m j k l and so on become her numpad for entering the special characters --No, you cannot use the regular numbers to do these commands). For example, the upside down exclamation mark ¡ as you see is ALT+173 and an upside down question mark ¿ is Alt+168 and so on. She was typing out Spanish words in correct format almost as fast as the wind blowing through the trees. I could hear her smile and joy through the computer.

She now has the ability to type out every Spanish word exactly as it should be and complete her work far faster than thought possible. 
       Denise 
 
Denise M. Robinson, TVI, Ph.D. 
Teacher of the Blind & Visually Impaired
TechVision-Independent Contractor
Specialist in blind programming/teaching/training
509-674-1853     deniserob at gmail.com

http://blindgeteducated.blogspot.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/pibe-division_nfbnet.org/attachments/20110914/6619c87a/attachment.html>